A Sudanese man employed in the morgue of Sanaa University's medical faculty, has confessed to killing a total of 27 women, 16 in Yemen and 11 in Sudan, a Yemeni police official told AFP Tuesday in a case which has rocked the country.

Investigators have been sent to Sudan, Jordan and Kuwait to further the enquiry, said the official, who asked not to be named.

Mohammed Adam, 45, who was arrested in Sanaa last week, "has confessed to killing 27 young girls and women, and his interrogation will end in the next few days," he said.

Adam said he had committed 11 of the murders in Omdurman.

The official said that before he came to Yemen, Adam had been in Israel in 1994 where he had spent three months in prison, but did not say what crime he had committed.

He had also lived in Kuwait and Jordan, but been expelled from both countries, he said.

The only two bodies that have so far been found were those of an Iraqi student, named as Zeinab, and a Yemeni, Hosn, both of which were hidden in the faculty morgue.

On Monday a police source told AFP that Adam was involved in the smuggling of body parts abroad for scientific purposes.

The police added that the suspect -- who was originally named by them as Mohammed Nouh -- had "accomplices who are also accused of having traded in bodies and exported body parts to one or more Arab countries for medical experiments."

Only Adam has so far been arrested.

Police said that he had "tried to commit suicide by slicing open his wrists with glass from his spectacles."

Sanaa University said in a statement Tuesday evening it had only been contacted by two families about "the disappearance of two students, one Iraqi and the other Yemeni."

Yemen's parliament decided Tuesday to form a commission to investigate the killings, a parliamentary source said, and the cabinet also discussed the murders, insisting on the need to conclude quickly the police enquiry to explain the circumstances of the crimes."

Students at the medical faculty, meanwhile, organized a sit-in at the Sanaa university campus to "demand a quick enquiry and the arrest of all people implicated in the murders."

The students also decided to organize Wednesday a collective prayer to the memory of the Sudanese executioner's victims - (AFP)